Nature’s Machines: The Story of Biomechanist Mimi Koehl

Mimi Koehl tinkers with machines. Some are so tiny they can’t be seen by the naked eye, and some disappeared millions of years ago. But Mimi isn’t a mechanic. She’s a biomechanist. Mimi Koehl uses engineering and physics to study the designs of living things that fly, swim, drift, and crawl. She loves solving riddles about how creatures ‘from feathered dinosaurs to flying frogs’ live and move. Mimi’s curiosity has led her into all kinds of natural neighbourhoods. She has braved turbulent waters to explore how giant green sea anemones survive crashing waves. In Chile, while studying seaweeds, a rogue wave washed Mimi off one cliff and slammed her into another one. But nothing stops her desire for discovery. To uncover answers, Mimi has attached leashes to microscopic animals and created ingenious models using raspberry gelatin and even Silly Putty. Today Mimi searches the world ‘and her imagination’ for answers to life’s challenging mysteries.